


Merry-Go-Round

by Prim_the_Amazing



Series: life is a rollercoaster [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Stranger!Jon, flensing, jon copes v badly with a breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: This place is creepy. His immediate instinct is to turn back around and leave.And go where? Back to his empty flat? To a bar, to drink himself miserably drunk?Jon heads deeper inside the taxidermy store. He has to walk slowly, carefully, and still almost pulls a fox to the floor when its fangs snag on his shirt. He’s carefully plucking the fabric free from the teeth when a light, airy, feminine voice says, “My, my, what do we have here?”
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Nikola Orsinov & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: life is a rollercoaster [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004190
Comments: 90
Kudos: 285
Collections: Rusty Quill Big Bang 2020





	Merry-Go-Round

**Author's Note:**

> My partner for this big bang, [Yvonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connect_the_stars/pseuds/Yvonne), made a great podfic for this fic, so check that out!

Jon is twenty two years old, and he’s riding a merry-go-round for the first time in his life. 

Money had been tight growing up, he and his grandmother subsisting mostly on her pension and his parents inheritance. No cash left to waste on petty, childish indulgences, even when he was a child. Books were cheaper entertainment that lasted you for longer. Jon hadn’t minded. He liked books. (Not counting the entire year after he’d read A Guest For Mr. Spider, during which he’d been too frightened to so much as touch anything but his school textbooks.) 

But he has money to waste now, doesn’t he? From the part time jobs he’s been working ever since he started going to Oxford, from the inheritance he got when his grandmother died when he was nineteen that he’s been cautiously and frugally making last as long as possible. Enough money to take a ride on a merry-go-round. Why not? Why not buy a ticket and see what all of the fuss is about, experience something that seemingly every other person has at some point in their childhood? Just to check it off the list, about ten years too late. 

It’s surprisingly… thrilling. It feels faster when he’s on it than it had looked from the outside, dizzying and a little bit breathtaking. 

That might be the sleep deprivation talking though. He hasn’t properly slept since-- 

Since--

The ride comes to a stop. Jon stumbles off the plastic pony he’s a touch too large for, and walks off the merry-go-round, surrounded by a flock of small children. He knows he stands out like a sore thumb, that people are shooting side long glances at the lone adult on a ride intended for people under the age of ten, but for once in his life he just can’t bring himself to care. Maybe that’s the sleep deprivation talking too. 

He looks around, a little bit desperate for another distraction to shut his mind up before he starts thinking about--  _ it.  _

He ends up buying himself a soft serve ice cream. Nothing more exciting than plain vanilla, and the cone sort of tastes like cardboard, and the whole thing is overpriced, really, but it gets the job done. He focuses on eating it, on not letting his faintly trembling hand slip and let some melting drops land on his shirt. Is this the first thing he’s eaten today? He’s not sure. It feels a bit like it, now that he’s eating something. 

_ “The zoo is closing in thirty minutes,” _ the intercom rings out.  _ “Please begin to leave.”  _

Oh, huh. He’s been here for a long time, then. Time’s been sort of a colorful blur for some hours now, and he can’t even blame it on alcohol or drugs. He’d tried it all just once some years ago, just to experience it, because that’s what you do in uni, right? You experiment. You cross things off a list, you see what fits you. But none of it had really been for him. (Not the sex either.) But maybe he should give it all a second shot? That’s what people are supposed to do in this situation, right? Drink their woes away and distract themselves with a, a rebound? 

He wonders what Georgie’s doing. Is she at a bar right now, not thinking about him, talking to someone else? She’d been the one who had done it, so maybe it’s different for her. Maybe she doesn’t need to, to mourn anything, maybe she’s just relieved that she finally got it over with. Moving on with her life. 

His eyes sting, and he sucks in a sharp breath and starts leaving the zoo, along with the other lingering happy families and couples. He’d wanted a distracting, flashy spectacle to keep him occupied for as long as possible, to keep his mind off it all, but now it’s over, it’s closing, and he’s still here with all of these things that he doesn’t want to think about. 

He leaves the zoo, the paper entrance bracelet still hanging on his wrist. He walks the streets in the opposite direction from home. His flat with Georgie-- 

Except it isn’t that any longer. She’d been ready to move out from the second she broke the news to him. Her bags all packed and everything in the next room over. Meaning, she’d known what she was going to do for a while. Meaning, for weeks she’d searched for a new flat, gone to look at them, made a decision, signed a lease, made arrangements with friends to help her move her things. All the while he was completely oblivious. 

How considerate of her. To take care of it all so quietly, so there wouldn’t be a slow separation with one of them sleeping on the couch until the other had found a new place. No awkward avoidance of each other in the kitchen, the restroom, the hallway. No chances to ask more questions, to cry, to say anything that might be regretted. That’s his Georgie. 

Was. That was his Georgie. 

Jon walks. The streets of London are crowded at even this time of day. The air is humid and hot even as the sky starts to turn dark. He doesn’t want to go home to his empty flat, that he lives in all alone now. He wants to be in places that are noisy enough that he doesn’t have to listen to his own thoughts. 

He walks past people holding hands, past people walking close shoulder to shoulder as they whisper and talk and laugh, past people walking their dogs, past people on their phones, either texting or chattering away. It feels like anywhere he looks, all he sees is people with something he had as well only a short while ago, and doesn’t have any longer. And never will again. 

A distraction. Quickly. 

He spots a shop front door with a sign on it that says OPEN. Without even stopping to check what it’s selling, he takes a sharp left turn and enters it. He’s already made several impulse purchases in the last few days, what’s a couple more? 

What he’s met with, once he enters the store, is startling and distracting enough that he forgets about desperately searching for a distraction in the first place. He’s just… astonished. And interested. 

He’s surrounded by taxidermied animals. Towering bears, snarling wolves, glaring eagles. They cover every single surface, turning the store cramped and claustrophobic. They’re so badly stuffed and preserved that it’s _ eerie,  _ and Jon wonders, a little bit hysterically, if he did actually decide to swallow some pills to try and turn his brain off for a few hours and now he’s having a bad trip. 

This place is creepy. His immediate instinct is to turn back around and leave. 

And go where? Back to his empty flat? To a bar, to drink himself miserably drunk? 

Jon heads deeper inside the taxidermy store. He has to walk slowly, carefully, and still almost pulls a fox to the floor when its fangs snag on his shirt. He’s carefully plucking the fabric free from the teeth when a light, airy, feminine voice says, “My, my, what do we have here?” 

He yelps, and turns around quickly enough that he ends up toppling the fox to the floor anyways, which pulls an owl down to the floor along with it in a loud clatter. His shirt audibly gains a new tear. 

The woman laughs, which helps him spot her amongst the many, many figures cluttering up the shop. There, in the shadows, he can see her silhouette. It’s just gloomy enough in here that he can’t see much beyond the sharp white of her teeth as she smiles, and her gleaming eyes. She looks tall. 

“Er,” he says, mind a little bit blank with panic at having made such a damned mess in someone’s store. Is he going to have to  _ buy _ those now? He doesn’t want dead animals in his flat. “Sorry, just browsing,” is somehow what he ends up saying. 

The woman giggles, apparently not infuriated by the ruckus he’s making. Maybe she doesn’t work here? Is she just another customer? 

“Aren’t you a tempting little morself? No wonder Mister Fox couldn’t stop himself from trying to sneak a bite.” 

“I--” he says, and stutters along those lines for a while, because  _ what? _ Was that a threat or a flirtation? He can’t tell, and he’s not sure which one he’d prefer. He crouches down to pick up the taxidermied animals and try to put them back in their places, and yelps as the back of his hand accidentally grazes along the owl’s talons. He snatches his hand to his chest, wincing. 

“Missus  _ Owl,” _ the woman chastises. “There’s no need for that, is there? Oh, look at what you’ve done, you’ve damaged his  _ lovely _ skin.” 

Blood is indeed beading on the back of his hand in three shallow scratches. 

“I-- I’m fine, it’s just a scratch,” he quickly assures her, feeling like a bumbling fool, and also a bit put off by the phrase ‘lovely skin’. The woman’s voice is almost sing song as she speaks, cheery and delighted, and he wonders if she’s… all  _ there, _ in the head. 

“Owl, Fox, both of you contain yourselves. I know it’s a challenge, but this clearly isn’t just  _ anyone, _ is it? Just  _ look _ at him,” the woman says with great appreciation. She crouches down, and there’s something strange and wrong about the way she moves that sends a sharp bolt of unease through him, and then something comes sliding across the floor from her to him. It comes to rest by his shoe. 

It’s a box of band aids. 

“Oh,” he says. “Um, thank you, that’s very kind of you.” 

“Best cover your pretty ripped skin up quickly,” she says happily. “There’s only so long the menagerie can bring themselves to resist the temptation.” 

“Right,” he says. He feels a bit--  _ bad _ about it, about how much he wants to get away from this woman. She’s being kind, isn’t she? Giving him band aids and not being cross at him for making a mess. 

But she’s being strange as well, and he wants to get out of here. He reaches down and plucks up the box, quickly removing a plaster big enough to cover the three scratches on his hand. It would be rude to just stand up and leave, even he knows that. He hasn’t cared much about the impression he’s been leaving on the people around him for the last few days, it suddenly seeming so unimportant. But not this woman. He doesn’t want to… insult her. Do anything to make her angry. She makes him feel uneasy enough as it is. 

He fixes the band aid neatly in place, and then picks up the owl and the fox and puts them back in their places. This time, no talons or fangs catch and hook at him. 

_ “Good _ pets,” the woman coos at the still and silent taxidermied animals. 

“Well,” Jon says, stilted. “Thank you for the, for the band aid. Very kind of you. I’ll just--” He starts to leave. 

“Aren’t you going to buy anything?” she asks pleasantly, freezing him in his tracks. 

“Are you… do you work here?” 

“I’m the owner! You can call me Nikola. It’s very nice to meet you.” 

“Oh.” He lets his eyes wander across the many stuffed dead animals crowding the place, a little bit desperately looking for anything he’d be willing to buy as a concession, to have to touch and see and own. It feels like every single one of their eyes is fixed on him, “My name is Jon. I’m… afraid that taxidermy isn’t really-- it’s not a hobby of mine--” 

“That’s too bad,” she says, injecting an almost cartoonish amount of despondence into the words. Her tone bounces straight back to sunny by the next sentence. “Oh, I have an idea! You could buy something  _ else.”  _

“Something… else?” He can’t see anything here besides animals. Is she going to take him to some sort of backroom? Following her dark figure still cloaked in shadows, her voice playfully and abruptly swinging from the extremes of various emotions, deeper into the crowded labyrinth of dead faces frozen in snarls and splayed claws that still feel like they’re _ looking _ at him-- 

It’s not appealing. 

“A service,” she says conspiratorially. “Something special that I don’t offer to just  _ anyone _ , so make sure to keep it hush hush so no one else gets jealous.” 

“Um,” he says, flushing hotly with flustered, awkward embarrassment. “I-- I d-- don’t--” 

She interrupts him with a laugh, bright and loud, filling up the gloomy shop. “Oh, not like  _ that. _ Where did you drop your mind? You should keep a more careful grip on it so it doesn’t get  _ dirty.” _

If possible, he feels even  _ more _ embarrassed, hot and tight and small. “Right,” he chokes out, trying not to immediately stutter out awkward apologies for assuming. At least she doesn’t seem angry, just amused. 

She seems to be amused by  _ everything.  _

“I can see it on you,” she says, and her voice goes deeper, more serious, as abruptly as a rollercoaster taking the drop. “How your skin doesn’t sit  _ well _ on you.” 

“E--excuse me?” 

“Your life. Your  _ you-ness. _ You don’t like it. You don’t want to wear it any longer, do you? It’s not flattering, it’s not a good look. You don’t want to keep being stuck as  _ Jon. _ It’s out of season! You want to change, try on something new. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Imagine having to wear the same ratty old sweater for the rest of your life, every single day. That’s just not fair! Everyone needs a little variety now and then.” 

It dawns on him that this woman, Nikola, may not just be strange, but  _ dangerous. _ That he needs to leave right now, basic manners be damned. He takes a step back, and he stumbles backwards straight into the open, jagged maw of a wolf. He hisses, and tries to pull the shoulder of his sweater out of its fangs without letting it dig into his flesh. He could have  _ sworn _ that there hadn’t been anything behind him. 

Nikola laughs again, as if she’s feeling silly and giddy on champagne. “Thank you, Missus Wolf. You really should stay for my whole pitch, Jon. It’s rude to just leave in the middle of it! It’s a  _ privilege _ for you that I’m even giving it at all. There’s no need to be scared. I won’t press it on you if you say no. But you’d be an absolute  _ clown _ to do so!” 

She laughs again, more uproarious this time, like she’s made a hilarious joke. 

“I have to go,” he says, feeling all of his thoughts escape him as fear starts to creep into his head to replace them. “My girlfriend’s waiting for me outside.” 

“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” she titters. “Now, here’s my deal. For just one night, I’ll help you be someone else. Someone who isn’t Jon. Wouldn’t you like that? Aren’t you just  _ sick _ of yourself? You reek of it, dear. You  _ deserve _ a break from you. And the cost is so, so small and insignificant.” 

Nikola steps out from the shadows, far enough that the golden lamp posts from outside cast light on her features. Jon goes still and cold at the sight of her face. 

“You practically won’t even feel it.” 

All the air has left his lungs, so he doesn’t scream, but he does rip away from the wolf, injuries be damned (but he’s let go easily, like it hadn’t been a challenge to get away from it earlier) and he runs. He doesn’t care if he knocks things over, if he makes a mess, if he slams open the glass door too powerfully on his way out. He  _ knows _ that you’re supposed to run away from monsters. He runs. 

“Let him go,” he hears Nikola say before he’s gotten to the door. And then, calling out to him as the bell rings above him and he throws himself back out into the real world where monsters can’t exist. Spiders larger than full grown men and women that don’t look _ right _ can’t possibly chase after him on a well lit sidewalk where he can see other people walking only feet away, right? “Your loss!” 

He runs, and he doesn’t stop until he’s back in his empty flat, with no one in it to ask if he’s okay and wonder about what happened. Safe and sound. 

How do you possibly move on, after a brush with the impossible? 

Well, Jon knows how. He’d already done it once, as a child. He’d just… gotten over it. There was simply no other choice. What was he supposed to do?  _ Tell _ someone? He’d never thought for a moment that anyone would believe him, even at eight years old. Especially at eight years old. Towering man eating spiders and magic hypnotic books-- those aren’t real. They’re only nightmares and fanciful tales. He had no evidence. The door his bully had gone through now only opened up into an ordinary shop’s backroom storage, and the book itself, abandoned on the ground, had vanished. There was no trace of Mr. Spider’s victim left. 

So, Jon had had his nightmares that slowly grew more and more sporadic until they were something that only happened weekly or even monthly, instead of every single night. He refused to read or even touch any books at all, until he’d eventually reassured himself that it was only the ones about spiders, the children’s books with the drawn pictures, and the ones with the nameplate ‘from the library of Jurgen Leitner’ that were dangerous. And he developed a deep terror for spiders, that never really lessened or faded, that eventually became an inextricable part of himself. There’s Jonathan Sims, the boy without any parents, the boy who’s strange and quiet and rude, the boy who shrieks when he sees a spider and starts trying to squash it as frantically as someone trying to put out a flame before it gets the chance to spread. Pretty funny, right? Let’s laugh at him. 

Here is what you do when you brush up against the impossible: nothing. There’s nothing you  _ can _ do. You just run and hide and hope you survive, and you try your best to get over it, even as it leaves its inevitable scars on you. Nightmares and phobias and a lingering, terrible knowledge in the back of your mind that the impossible is real, and it is out there waiting in the dark corners, waiting to swallow up any wandering, unwitting strays. You are not safe. You may die at any moment, for no good reason at all besides that something bigger than you was hungry and you were there, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

But car accidents are real and unfair and unstoppable as well. Aneurysms too. Heart attacks. Armed robberies. Domestic abuse gone lethal. Accidents and disease and violence. Possibly dying far too early at any moment for a reason you couldn’t have possibly prevented or foreseen was already a fact. 

Jon had known it earlier than most, thanks to his parents. And he’d gotten over that, hadn’t he? Sure, he’d cried himself to sleep for a good while there, he’d felt profoundly lonely for so long that it eventually stopped registering. He hadn’t been apathetic to it. But he’d accepted it as another unchangeable fact of reality, of life. Death and slipping and falling from a ladder and routine surgery gone wrong and being left without any parents and monsters that eat children are all real. What can you do about it? Nothing, so get used to it. Keep living. Try to think about other things, at least sometimes. 

This isn’t even the first time he’s run into a monster. He already  _ knows _ that the impossible is real, this time. That should soften it a bit, right? 

Lying alone in his bed that’s big enough for two, running his thumb over a band aid on the back of his hand, he thinks about her. Nikola. 

She’d looked like someone wearing a too tight outfit, except the outfit had been her skin. It had stretched across her frame, thin and strained,  _ tearing  _ at the corners of her too wide smile, holes at the edges of her jaw like an old fraying favorite shirt, showing off something white beneath. Her eyes had been glazed over like a corpse, like a doll. They had been slightly deflated, like balloons that were several days old. They had moved a little with her steps, like marbles nestled into holes a touch too big to keep them still and in place. She had been tall, her limbs long, slim to the point that it hadn’t really looked like all of the necessary organs could fit in her midsection, the proportions just on the edge of _ wrong.  _

And she’d been looking right at him. Smiling at him. Talking to him. Walking towards him. Reaching out with one hand to  _ touch _ him. 

He swallows back bile. He stares sightlessly up at the cracked ceiling above him, as he lies on his bed. He could sprawl across the middle if he wanted to, but he’s lying on his side of the bed. If he closes his eyes, he could-- no. He still couldn’t imagine that Georgie was lying in her spot next to him. That’s why he’s been sleeping so little, since she disappeared from his life all at once. There’d be a dip in the mattress from her weight, drawing him towards her as inextricably as gravity, him revolving around her, the star of his life. There’d be the warmth of her body, even if they weren’t touching yet, faintly felt. There’d be the soft sound of her breathing, as she slept as quiet and still as the dead. There’d be the faint smell of her, pleasant and human and familiar. 

He wonders, if she were still here, if he’d have told her. He hadn’t told anyone about Mr. Spider, ever. His grandmother wouldn’t have believed him. Would have told him off for telling tales, for letting his imagination rile him up like that. He’d never had to test the theory to know it as fact. 

But would Georgie have believed him, about the woman named Nikola who didn’t look right? He doesn’t know, and that’s more than he’s ever had with anyone else in his life. (More than he’ll ever have with someone again.) She might have listened to him, might have comforted him, might have even believed him. The real question is,  _ would he have told her? _ Would he have had the courage to tell confident and fearless Georgie Barker about the impossible thing he saw? 

She was so brave that she sometimes made him feel the same by association. Brave enough to say yes to her asking him out, brave enough to come out as queer, brave enough to try and have friends, after having given up on that so long ago. 

She’s not here now though, and he doesn’t feel brave any longer. And it doesn’t matter if she would have believed him, if he would have told her. Because she isn’t a part of his life any longer. 

He still has her number. He deleted it, but he’s memorized it, and can never forget it. He could reach out to her. She might answer. He could talk to her. She might not hang up. He could tell her. She might care. 

He doesn’t. The entire idea is… he can’t fool himself for a single second into thinking that he might actually do any of it. He might have told his girlfriend, his partner of three years, that he’d run into a monster in a taxidermy shop. He will not be telling his ex, who gently but firmly informed him three days ago (four now) that she didn’t think that they should stay together, about anything that happens to him at all. She doesn’t want him in her life. He knows. He’ll respect that. He won’t push himself on her. He won’t force her into an awkward position again, this time knowingly. 

He loves her, after all. 

The next morning, Jon wakes up. He lies there as the knowledge that there is no reason for him to get out of bed slowly seeps into his brain. It’s summer, there are no classes to attend. There is no girlfriend to make breakfast with. There is no cat to feed. There are no friends to go to a concert or a bar or a party or a park or a shop with. 

They’d all been her friends, after all. He’d thought at the time, I’ve finally managed it. I’ve finally made friends. It’s not like being a little kid or a teenager any longer, everyone’s adults now. There’s no bullying. If someone doesn’t like you, they just politely avoid you. It’s possible to talk to people about books now, or interesting subjects brought up in class, or a particularly fun band. To have inside jokes, to enjoy being included and a part of everything, to talk to people and be talked back to. He’d tried to make friends, and he’d finally succeeded. He’d just been bad at being a child, bad at talking to and relating to other children. That was all. He wasn’t inherently broken or weird or wrong. He could have friends, he’d just had to wait to grow up first. 

Except. Except, where had all of those friends come from? Who had introduced him to all of them, who had held his hand through those first few tentative conversations as he got to know those friends, and those friends came to know him? Who had said ‘Jon meet Mark and Ivy, Ivy and Mark, meet Jon.’ Who had smiled so hopefully, practically radiating ‘I hope you like him, please like him,  _ I _ like him.’ 

They had been her friends. And they’d been  _ good _ friends. They’d accepted her boyfriend readily, cheerful and welcoming, reassuring and fun. So easy to talk to. It had been so easy, hadn’t it? Easier than it had ever been before. Because it didn’t matter what he was like, really. He was Georgie’s boyfriend, and they all liked Georgie, so they were going to get along with him no matter what. And they had. He’d felt warm and welcome, and he’d smiled and laughed along with them. It had been a good time. 

And like good friends, they’d dropped all contact with him as soon as Georgie broke up with him. It’d be awkward for her, wouldn’t it, if they kept being a part of both her life and his. It’d remind her of him. He’d come up in conversation, they could be invited to the same parties, they might even  _ run into each other. _ And that wasn’t fair to her, was it? And if it came down to a choice between her or him then, well… 

Jon doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t have text messages or missed phone call notifications on his cell. He doesn’t have people knocking on his door, checking to see if he’s alright. He can’t bring himself to blame any of them. He was the one who had misunderstood, after all. 

Georgie had been the one with friends, all along. She’d just shared them with him. Very nice of her. She’s nice, Georgie. Part of why he’d been drawn to her, why he’d said  _ yes _ when she said  _ do you want to go out with me _ after  _ do you want to get a drink _ had sailed right over his head. 

There had been a game at school that had started around the time he was nine and had kept being popular until he was twelve. It was ‘pretend to be Jon’s friend, and see how long it takes him to notice that it’s not real’. It had been… rough. For the first year, it always took him so long to notice that he never really realized it until the other kid gave up and told him, and then went off to laugh with their real friends about it. The second year, he started to catch on before they confessed. The third, he never fell for it, not even once, not even when they seemed really, really convincing. They got bored of it after that, after he’d just silently glare at anyone who’d sidle up to him with a smile and some friendly questions. 

This isn’t that. It’s different. It wasn’t bullying, it wasn’t a prank, it wasn’t a joke or a game. They’d been  _ nice. _ They’d just been nice to Georgie’s new boyfriend, and they’d kept being nice to him after it started to look like he was going to stick around. It’s different. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop thinking about that game, every time he picks up his phone and sees no new messages, no new calls. It’s unfair of him. 

Jon has absolutely no reason to get out of bed. He could stay in here for the rest of the day, not moving a muscle, and no one would notice. No one would care. Why would they? 

He gets out of bed anyways. 

Jon does not leave his flat. He does not search out distractions with a quiet frantic desperation. He’d run into a monster the last time he did that. He’s going to stay inside his flat, with the lock on the door, where it’s safe. 

His flat that is so, so quiet and empty. Georgie had taken all of her things with her, neatly packed away by the time he came back home so she could make a quick exit after she broke the news to him, not make things awkward for him. She’d taken her clothes (including her oversized sweaters that he liked to wear on lazy mornings), her makeup (that he liked to dip into when he was feeling especially bold), her soaps (that he used when he wanted to smell like her). She’d taken her band posters that she’d bought on dates they went together on, her favorite mug, her books that Jon had never read more than once anyways, the cute cartoon figurines from her favorite shows that had cluttered up their shelves. They were her things, bought with her own money. It is only fair that she took them with her. 

The flat is so empty without any of her things in it. There’s only his possessions left, and there are less of them than he’d thought. They fill up so little space. It hadn’t felt like that, before he’d moved in with her. But then again, he’d been living in a smaller place then, and he hadn’t carved out space in his life for another person yet. There are so many stretches of time in his day that he would have spent talking to Georgie, touching Georgie, doing things with Georgie. He now has to figure out how to fill up those spaces with just himself again, and he has no idea of how to even start. 

There is only Jon left in his life now. Jon, who is too little, too lacking. There is nothing and no one to soften his presence, to cover it up or distract from it or make up for it. 

_ I can see it on you _ , Nikola, the monster, had said. _ How your skin doesn’t sit  _ well _ on you.  _

He has to stop thinking about her. Stop obsessing. 

_ Georgie or Nikola?  _

Shut up. 

Jon tries his best to keep his thoughts from going in fruitless, agonizing circles, with no stimulus but what he finds in his flat. He reads the few books he has that he hasn’t read yet. He tries to flip through the ones he already has, and ends up staring blankly at the text, reading without taking any of it in. He makes himself food. He has enough in the fridge to make a mediocre omelette. He eats it. He tries to clean, despite how listless and restless he feels. 

_ Your life. Your  _ you-ness.  _ You don’t like it. You don’t want to wear it any longer, do you?  _

She had talked like Jonathan Sims was nothing more than a jacket he could easily shrug off for a day. Like he could be someone else. Someone who doesn’t have no one, someone who isn’t so lacking and unlikeable that he has no friends or family or loved ones after trying and wanting for twenty two whole years. But that’s impossible, of course. You can’t just stop being you. Jon will always be Jon and all that entails for as long as he lives, and there’s nothing he can do about it. 

He has known since he was eight years old that the impossible is real, though. 

He stops where he is, crouching and trying to reach underneath his bed to properly clean the floor there. That… is a bad thought, he thinks. The beginnings of a bad idea, a bad impulse. He has those, sometimes. He doesn’t think things through, now and then. His grandmother had scolded him for it, and loaded him down with books in the hopes that it’d stop him from breaking into the school after it was closed to see if the teachers really slept there, or from poking around in the forest off the neat paths that stopped him from being lost for hours, or from wandering into abandoned buildings to see if there were any skeletons in them. Once he’d entered uni, once he’d gotten friends (Georgie’s friends), it had made people laugh, incredulous and delighted and ready to gleefully make fools of themselves along with him. It had been  _ fun. _

This is a step too far, though. This isn’t trespassing or trying out edibles for the first time in public. This is messing with monsters. Humoring them, entertaining them, considering the possibility that their words can be anything but a trap. Monsters eat people. He knows this from bitter experience. He can’t let himself fall for it. Two times now, he has run into a monster and survived, against all odds. He can’t take that for granted. He can’t risk himself just because… 

Just because he can’t stand himself. 

There it is. There’s the thought that he’s been desperately avoiding ever since Georgie revealed that  _ she _ couldn’t stand him either. Can’t take it back any longer. It’s something that he knows about himself now. He’s Jonathan Sims, and he hates that. He is himself, and it’s terrible. Jon is Jon, and there’s nothing he can do about it. 

What is he supposed to do with this? Now that he can’t deny it any longer, now that he knows it-- what is he supposed to do? It’s a problem without a solution. He can’t get away from himself the way Georgie had gotten away from him. He’s trapped in his own skin with himself, the unlikeable, unavoidable cellmate for life. 

_ For just one night, I’ll help you be someone else.  _

It’s a bad idea. A horrible, terrible, undeniably bad idea. He shouldn’t do it. It’s stupid and reckless and dangerous and he  _ shouldn’t.  _

But of course, if he does, and the worst happens… then so what? Who will mourn? Who will worry as he takes too long to come back home, as he keeps not answering his phone? Who will even  _ notice? _ His landlord, once the time to pay the month’s rent comes? There’s not even a cat who will starve without his intervention to feel guilty over. 

There are so many small, sharp things that remind him that Georgie is gone, and how it hurts, and how much he misses her. Her cat somehow feels like the pettiest of reasons, but it’s one of the ones that hit the worst. He keeps waking up too early in the morning, feeling uneasy and worried, because there isn’t a familiar warm weight on his chest. He keeps picking up a can of cat food in the pet aisle, and then having to backtrack and put it back five minutes later when he remembers. He keeps expecting to feel fur winding around his ankles as he makes food. He keeps expecting to hear a crash somewhere in the flat as the Admiral accidentally knocks something over. He keeps expecting to be interrupted while he’s reading or watching the telly by the Admiral jumping onto his lap, meowing and demanding attention, purring once he gives it, nipping a bit at his fingers if he gives too much of it. 

It was such a stupid mistake, getting attached. He had never been Jon’s cat. Of course Georgie had taken him with her. Why does he keep wanting to call her to ask how he’s doing, to ask if he can maybe see him? Like they’ve got joint custody of a child, or something else equally ridiculous. He has zero ownership over him, and he never did. The Admiral is fine. Georgie’s taking care of him. The cat probably hasn’t even registered that Jon’s gone. 

He’s getting maudlin again. He hates it. He’s sick of it. Of going still in the middle of some task, all of his thoughts derailed by dwelling on yet another way his life feels colder and emptier ever since the break up, and only coming back to himself when the hot water in the shower runs out or the cashier is awkwardly clearing their throat at him. He wants for his brain to  _ stop doing this to him.  _ To be able to stop thinking, stop feeling. 

_ Aren’t you just sick of yourself? You reek of it, dear. You  _ deserve _ a break from you. And the cost is so, so small and insignificant.  _

Jon decides to make a bad choice. 

He hadn’t thought to look up and read what the shop’s name was before he entered it, and he definitely hadn’t done so on his way out. But there aren’t that many taxidermy shops in London, and he knows the vague area he was in. 

_ The Trophy Room. _ He writes down the address on a slip of paper, and after a lot of thought he picks up a swiss army knife and puts it in his pocket. And he goes, to deliberately run into a monster that seemed far too enamored with his skin for comfort. 

This is definitely the dumbest thing he’s ever done. He’s doing it anyways, his head buzzing with nerves far too loudly for him to be able to think clearly. 

He makes sure to go and visit during daylight hours this time, though. Because he isn’t  _ suicidal. _ No, he knows he isn’t. He doesn’t want to die. He just… 

He just. 

Jon goes to  _ The Trophy Room.  _

It doesn’t look all that foreboding, from the outside, with sunlight shining down on the windows and obscuring what’s inside, people walking past him on the sidewalk as he looks at it for a long moment. It looks small, old, and cramped. He takes a deep breath, and enters. The bell rings above him. The comforting sound of human beings talking and walking and living and breathing goes muffled and distant as the door closes behind him. 

Too late to back out now. 

He looks around the shop cautiously. Even in the middle of the day, it’s full of shadows, no lights on in the ceiling, the many taxidermied animals posed to lunge or snarl casting shadows across the walls and floor. So many hiding places, blindspots. Dust hangs heavy in the air. He doesn’t hear anything inside. Doesn’t see Nikola, or anyone but the animals. He can’t help but feel like they’re all watching him hungrily. 

“... Hello?” he calls out. His voice wavers, like he wants to shout and not be heard at the same time. No noises reply. After a long moment, he takes a hesitant step further into the store, even though he’d much rather cling as close as he can to the door leading to the outside world, ready to escape at a moment’s notice. He remembers how close Nikola had gotten the last time, before he managed to rip his way free. She could have reached out an arm and grazed her fingers over his face, if she’d wanted to. He shudders at the thought of it. 

_ What are you doing, _ he thinks, and for some reason it’s in Georgie’s voice.  _ You idiot, you’re going to get yourself killed. Leave.  _

“Nikola?” he calls out, louder this time, more steady, to drown out Georgie’s voice urging him to safety in his head. “It-- it’s me, Jon. I-- I’d like to talk about that deal that you-- you offered me.” 

“Had some second thoughts?” a voice asks right behind him, close enough for the breath to gust over the nape of his neck. 

He screams, whirls around, takes several steps backwards and ends up falling on his arse. 

Nikola is standing there, knees bent so she could breathe onto his neck. She rocks on her heels and throws her head back and laughs, and it sounds delighted and looks  _ wrong. _

“So  _ skittish,”  _ she giggles. “What’s the matter, Jon? This is my shop, and you called for me. Why are you so surprised? It’s not as if this isn’t anything you haven’t already seen before. Yesterday, in fact! Or, I think it was yesterday?” 

The light filters through the dusty windows and hits her back, and it leaves her face strangely obscured, only the edges of her lighted up. It’s enough to leave him scrambling away from her without stopping to stand back up, further into the shop. 

“D-- don’t!” 

She tilts her head to the side in cartoonish confusion. “Don’t what? Use your words, Jon.” 

“Don’t come any closer. Don’t.” 

“It’s my shop, isn’t it? I can’t do what I want to in my shop?” Despite her pouting words, she doesn’t move towards him. She remains standing exactly where she is. Blocking the door outside, he realizes with sinking dread. 

After he’s well outside of grabbing or lunging range from her, he stops, and just tries to breathe and _ not blink, _ not take his eyes off of her for a moment. 

“You’d think I’d grabbed you off the street against your will,” she says, amused. “But you walked into my shop to buy something, didn’t you? Just like a regular customer. So there’s no  _ need _ for all of this  _ panic.”  _

_ But if I decide not to buy anything will you let me go again? _ Jon bites his tongue instead of saying any of that out loud. 

“Right,” he eventually manages to make himself agree. He stands up shakily, reaching out to steady himself before he remembers himself and aborts the movement. Every surface in this place is covered in dead, stuffed animals. He’s not going to touch any of it. 

“So you’ve been considering my deal,” Nikola says with satisfaction. She turns to a taxidermied alligator hanging from the roof suspended on wires next to her head. “Didn’t I say so? See, I was right to make you let him go. I know someone who’s  _ interested _ when I see them.” 

The alligator says nothing in reply. Nikola chuckles like it had. He doesn’t know if Nikola talking to things is an indication that they’re sentient like her, or if she’s just mad. Both are just as likely, unfortunately. Jon wants to edge away from the animals around him, unnerved, but he can’t. He’s completely surrounded. Any direction away from one is a direction closer to another. 

“I-- I’d just like to hear you out.” How was it that she’d phrased it? “Listen to your whole pitch. You, you said that the cost was small? What _ is _ it exactly?” 

He remembers, as little as he wants to, how Mr. Spider hadn’t thought that a cake or flowers were good enough gifts, and Mr. Bluebottle and Mrs. Fruit were both eaten as punishment. Only Mr. Horse’s  _ son _ would do, and even then he wanted more. When a monster says that the cost is small and insignificant, they only mean that it’s small and insignificant to  _ them.  _

He’s made a mistake. He knew he was making a mistake, even as he was looking up the shop’s address, even as he put on his shoes and left the flat, even as he got on the tube, even as he opened the door and walked inside and called out for her. He looks at the door behind Nikola, at the sliver of the outside world through the windows that he suddenly desperately, urgently wishes he was back out in. He did this to himself. He’s an idiot. He deserves this. He doesn’t want to be here. He’s made a mistake. He wants out. 

It’s too late for that. 

“I’m _ so _ glad you asked,” she gushes. “And yes the price _ is _ small. Let me show you just how tiny it is!” 

And she takes a step towards him, her legs long and eating up the distance between them that had given him a small sense of safety so quickly. He flinches back, and feels sharp points like many knives prickle at his back, and he stops before they can pierce his skin. 

“Thank you, Mr. Stag!” She closes the distance between them, and her hand shoots out and snatches one of his wrists. A hoarse cry escapes him, and he tries to tug it out of her hand, but her grip is strong and unyielding. Her hand slides down to his fingers, and with her other hand she shoves up the sleeve of his shirt. She traces a finger in a circle on his bare arm, and she’s  _ touching _ him, skin on ungodly skin, and it’s  _ awful. _ “That teensy weensy. See, not a big deal at all! That’s barely anything, really. Don’t you agree?” 

He takes a moment to try and stop hyperventilating, to make sure that what comes out of his mouth isn’t a scream or a shrill demand that she let go of him, get away, stop touching him. “Wh-- what do you mean?” 

She leans in and  _ smiles _ at him, inches away from his face. When she’s so close, he can see that not even her teeth are natural. They look like real teeth, but they  _ don’t _ look like they’re supposed to be in her mouth. They’re nailed down into her gums, the teeth cracked and broken but staying in place. 

“You’re not that bright, are you, Jon,” she coos. “Your  _ skin. _ I want your lovely, beautiful skin. Just a little patch of it! And in exchange, you can be Not-You for a whoooole night. Doesn’t that sound nice? I think that sounds nice to _ me. _ A very fair and generous deal.” 

His mouth opens and closes for a moment. He tries to say  _ no _ or  _ I refuse  _ or  _ that’s crazy.  _

Instead, for some reason he says, “What’s the catch?” 

_ What’s the fucking  _ catch? _ She’s going to peel your skin off of you like you’re an orange, _ Georgie’s voice cries from the back of his head. 

He doesn’t know why his brain keeps doing that. Taking the thoughts that are common sense and basic self preservation, and papering her voice on top of them. Like she cares about him. 

That’s unfair. Of course she cares about him. She’d been very gentle about-- about everything. She just doesn’t… care about him the way he cares about her. 

“No catch!” Nikola says. “I won’t take more skin than you can slap some bandages over and recover from, I won’t take anything else, you’ll get to be Jon again when the sun rises, and the transaction ends there if that’s what you want. A service fairly paid for and delivered, no unseen strings attached.” 

She holds one of her hands out to him, as if for a handshake. The idea of voluntarily touching her makes him want to recoil, except for how the stag’s razor sharp antlers are still pressed tightly against his back. 

“Do we have a deal?” she asks sweetly. 

“Just one patch of skin,” he says hoarsely. “Just-- just a small patch.” 

“Of course,” she warmly assures him. “From a place on your body of your choosing, even!” 

He hadn’t thought about that. That she could’ve taken a square of skin right from his face. He swallows dryly. Well, it doesn’t matter now. She added the stipulation for him. Just a… just a small patch of skin. He can do that, right? Sure, of course, it’s going to hurt, it’s going to bleed, but-- he’ll survive it. 

And doesn’t he want to see what being anyone besides Jonathan Sims is like? Doesn’t he want to just _ know _ for sure if it’s so much easier and better to be anyone but him, the way it looks? Doesn’t he want to find out? 

“Deal,” he says, and makes himself grab her hand and shake it. The sensation of her skin is--  _ wrong. _ She grins so wide that the skin at the edges of her mouth tear wetly, like a wet paper bag, and she enthusiastically pumps his hand up and down. 

“Deal!” she parrots him. 

Deal. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. He’s committed now. He’s really going to do this. He’s-- 

Nikola shoves his shirt up his body, baring his stomach and chest to the chilly room. Her hands are cold, and an awful, indescribable texture. He yelps, tries to move away, stops when he feels the antlers press against him. Nikola strokes her hands up and down his sides, and for a terrible moment he feels  _ ticklish _ as a monster _ gropes _ him. 

_ “So _ much ground to cover,” she purrs. “So much potential! Oh, I just knew you’d be excellent all over when I saw you, Jon. You’re a flawless canvas.” She pinches at different patches of his skin, cold and sharp, as if inspecting it, and he makes a panicked keening sort of noise. 

“Stop-- stop that!” he says, high pitched. 

She giggles again. “But your voice goes so high when I touch you, Jon.” 

He pulls on a mask of disapproving indignance over the panic and the fear, as if this is just another awkward social encounter for him to bluster his way through. “I said stop that! You already have a deal! I’m not-- I’m not g-- giving you any skin from there, so stop touching it.” 

“So  _ stern,” _ she says. “No  _ fun. _ You’re better when you're squirming and yelping, Jon. It’s very cute.” 

He bats her hands away, and thank god, she lets him. He hastily and forcefully pulls his shirt back down, and then he shoves his arm towards her face, the sleeve still pushed up to the elbow. “My arm! Take a spot from my arm.” 

She sighs with exaggerated despondence. “Not a very  _ intimate _ choice. Not the softest part you could have chosen either.” 

“Tough,” he somehow manages to say without tripping over the word. She’s talking about his skin like she’s haggling with a butcher for the most tender cut of meat, and it’s making the hairs on the back of his neck rise. 

“Merciless. Heartless. Cruel. Oh well, fine, I suppose I will manage. You  _ do  _ have pretty skin, even on your arms. Do you moisturize, Jon?” 

He doesn’t. “Just get it over with,” he says far more firmly than he feels. 

“If you insist,” she says, grinning so widely that her lips are peeled away and showing all of her teeth, all of her gums, and more. He thinks he can see white, blood stained plastic underneath all of that, at the edges. Something clicks inside of his head. A mannequin. She’s a mannequin. That’s why her waist is so preposterously narrow, why her proportions are so cartoonishly perfect, why she towers over him at a flawless six feet of height. But then that means that her skin, her hair, her  _ teeth-- _

Her firm, cold plastic hand that’s wrapped in skin that can’t possibly be hers goes around his wrist in an iron grip, and yanks his arm up straight above him. He grunts as he has to go on the tips of his toes to retain his balance, his free hand flailing and latching onto Nikola on reflex. 

“You should stay very, very still,” she says, sounding as sing-song-y amused as always. “If I cut off more than I mean to because of your wriggling then that’s your fault and a nice little bonus for me.” 

He takes a deep, deep breath and holds it, like he’s about to take a dive underneath water. She flicks the wrist of her free hand, and a scalpel appears in it like a magic trick. His heartbeat thunders inside his chest, adrenaline in his veins screaming at him to  _ run _ as he sees the sharp point of it. 

He hasn’t stopped to consider what her peeling his skin might look like, until now. He hasn’t given himself the time to consider anything. But somehow, the last thing he’d been expecting was an entirely practical, mundane method. The way any normal (if not entirely sane) human being would peel off his skin. No monstrous, magical tricks. No snapping her fingers and tugging his skin off with her will. Just a sharp blade, and her applying it to him. 

She brings the scalpel to his skin, and is it just him, or is she drawing this out? Are her movements so torturously slow only inside of his mind? She almost seems to be  _ luxuriating _ in it, the unhurried approach of her blade, but he can’t tell for sure. Her face doesn’t move like it should, not the way a human’s would, and he doesn’t want to look at it more than he has to besides. 

And he is having a very, very hard time tearing his gaze away from that scalpel. When it makes contact with his skin, he gasps. It’s so cold. 

He almost doesn’t feel it as she draws the scalpel in a perfect circle on his forearm. The cut is smooth and flawless, like a hot knife through butter. Blood beads at the edges. She flicks her wrist again, and the scalpel is gone as suddenly as it first appeared, and then she’s digging her fingers in underneath the flap of skin, prying her plastic fingers into the cut she’s made and he can’t  _ breathe _ from how it makes his nerve endings come awake  _ screaming.  _

_ “Good  _ boy,” she says, digging her fingers in deeper and deeper, pulling at the skin until it tears free from the flesh underneath. “That’s right, freeze. That’s my favorite, really. Fight, flight, that’s all boring garbage. Freezers hold still so beautifully, like a very well trained pet.” 

A breathless noise of pain rattles out of his throat, too weak to be called a cry. 

With one brutal, violent motion, she  _ yanks _ the patch of skin off his arm. A scream tears out of his throat, and he falls to his knees as she lets him go. He curls up around his forearm as much as he can, trying as hard as he can to not let the  _ open hole _ on his arm brush up against anything, from how it makes the pain spike. 

“Oh, oh,” Nikola says. “Oh, it’s perfect. So _ soft. _ I love fresh skin, it’s the best.” 

He looks up, through the tears of pain, and he sees her nuzzling the small patch of brown and red against her face, smearing blood all over her cheek. She looks smitten. 

He opens his mouth, and doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. Instead he slowly, creakily takes off his shirt, and tries to wrap it tight around the bleeding circle of bare flesh on his arm, a big awkward lump of fabric. 

“Tease,” Nikola says, and it occurs to him that taking his shirt off and showing more skin around his woman--this monster-- is not a good idea. He’s in too much pain to try and cringe away from her. 

She crouches down in front of him, her knees somewhere around her ears, and she smiles maniacally at him as she strokes his skin in her hands like it’s a beloved pet. 

“Very well done,” she praises him. “You took that flensing like a champ. Well, a deal is a deal. I’ll go and get your part of it now.” 

And she springs back up to standing so quickly that her feet leave the floor for a moment as she unwinds like a coiled spring. She dances past all of the taxidermied animals like they’re no obstacle to her at all, and she disappears into the darkness at the end of the shop. Into a backroom? He stares after her numbly, and he realizes: he’s alone now. He could take the chance and leave before she comes back. It would be the safest possible choice for him to take, the best choice. 

He stays where he is, collapsed on the floor in quiet agony, waiting. He’s already paid the price. He wants to see the product now. 

_ You idiot,  _ Georgie’s voice says again. She just sounds sad now. Disappointed. It’s terrible. 

He still waits. 

He thinks he sees movement out of the corner of his eyes several times as he does, thinks that he hears faint whispering and rustling, but when he whips his head around there’s no one there. Only the taxidermied animals. And each time he looks somewhere else, he feels like when he looks back that nothing is in the same place as it was when he last saw it. Like they’re stalking closer and closer to him, crowding and surrounding him tighter and tighter, competing for the best view of him. 

It’s the pain, playing tricks with him. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to ignore it. Ignore the sense that he’s surrounded by people that are staring at him like he’s something to be eagerly torn apart, ignore the throbbing pain in his arm, ignore everything. 

“I’m baaaack,” Nikola sings, and he opens his eyes in time to see her somersault her way back to a graceful landing straight in front of him. She holds her arms out, and drops something on top of his head. 

“What?” he rasps, surprised and a little bit panicked as it drapes over him, obscuring his vision, hemming him in. He feels like he got a net dropped over him. He scrambles to rip it off of him with his one good arm. What the hell is it, a blanket? A tarp? 

He finally manages to get it off of himself, flung onto the floor. He looks at it, and doesn’t know what it is that he’s looking at. A familiar sense of incomprehension settles over him, like when Georgie would show him those optical illusion pictures that you had to relax your eyes and take a step back from before you could see what it was showing you. 

“It’s what you’ve paid for, silly,” Nikola says. “Or more accurately, rented. You did say that you only want one night, after all.” 

She crouches down and picks it up, shakes it out like a bunched up shirt, and then holds it up neatly in front of him in presentation. The dots align, and he registers what he’s looking at. 

He cries out and recoils. Something clatters loudly onto the floor behind him, which makes Nikola burst out into laughter. His arm sings with pain, just from the impact to his shoulders as he’d collided with whatever was behind him. 

“Excellent pratfall, Miss Moose!” she calls out over his shoulder. She tilts her head back towards him. “Oh, don’t be like that, Jon. I picked one of the better ones, just for you.”

She gestures with it in the air, as if trying to show off its good sides. It’s a skin. It’s a human being’s skin, peeled off perfectly like a glove. He can see the holes for the nostrils and the eyes and the mouth, he can see the general shape that looks like a human, if a human had been popped and deflated like a balloon. It looks  _ real. _ He knows that it’s real. 

Whoever this skin once belonged to, they’re dead. His breathing is fast and shallow as he stares at it. 

“You went through so much to get it,” she goads him. “At least try it on once.” 

“T-- try it on?” he repeats thinly, terrified and incredulous. 

“Of course! You want to be someone else, don’t you? Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes? Well, putting on someone else’s sneakers or loafers will probably just make your feet chafe from the size difference. It’s the skin you want. That’s how you change who you are, dear. Trust me. I used to be someone very different, but look at me now!” 

She beams at him grotesquely, as sincere as she is insane. 

She’s a monster. What had he been expecting? Something that wasn’t just a sadistic torturous trap? 

“I… don’t think… that that will work for me.” 

“Oh, tosh. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Jon. Come on, take your clothes off.” 

“N-- no. I don’t want to.” 

“I’m not letting you do this to yourself, Jon. You worked so hard for this! Your screams were lovely. Here, come on, I’m not going to let anyone call me a fraud or a conwoman. You  _ will  _ get what you paid for. No refunds!” With that, she casually tosses the skin to the side, and then reaches for him. He flinches back, and instinctively kicks out at her. She ignores his insignificant attack, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his trousers and pants, before yanking them off his legs as effectively as she’d torn the skin from his arm. 

An animate mannequin is forcibly unclothing him so she can force him to wear someone else’s skin like a suit, to the enraptured audience of dozens of dead, staring animals. It is so deeply, disturbingly surreal that he stops struggling after the first desperate scramble. Nikola hums, pleased, and neatly plucks the shoes and socks off of his feet before she drags his pants and trousers off the rest of the way. 

This can’t possibly be happening, he reasons. Sure, of course, he’d seen a spider kill a boy when he was eight, but-- but  _ really? _ No, this can’t be real. It has to be a surreal nightmare. The Admiral is going to wake him up any moment now, suffocating him with his fur. His alarm clock. The loud neighbours. Georgie--

He snaps out of it as Nikola tugs his shirt away from his arm. Clotted blood tugs painfully at the fabric as she removes it, fresh blood trickling down his arm, and he inhales sharply. He’s in pain. This is real. 

_ “Stop touching me!” _ His momentary compliance must have put her off her guard, because he manages to scramble away from her this time. He hugs his knees to his chest, because he’s  _ naked _ now, of all things. As if this entire encounter wasn’t already nerve wracking enough. He glares at her furiously, aware that he should probably be screaming for help or begging for mercy instead. He does want to do that too, a little bit. But mostly, he just wants to shout at her. 

“You know, I wouldn’t have to undress you like you’re a toddler if you’d just be an adult about this,” Nikola points out, as if she’s the one being at all reasonable here. The sheer incredulous outrage that swells up inside him at that leaves him speechless for a moment. 

After a long moment, he holds his hand out. “Give me the skin,” he grits out. “I’ll… try it out.” 

The thought of it alone leaves him feeling queasy, but he clearly doesn’t have a choice any longer at this point. He’s made a deal with the devil, and there’s no going back now. It doesn’t matter if it’s obviously a monkey’s paw wish of a service. He’ll just… have to put the skin on. As best as he can. And then take it off and go back home and shower and have nightmares about this for the rest of his life. And then shower again. 

“Oh, good,” she says. “You’re going to stop being so silly about this. I’m glad.” 

She hands him the skin. He makes himself touch it. Hold it. He turns it over in his hands, fighting the urge to let it fall to the floor the whole while, forcing himself to try and figure out how to put it on. Is he supposed to… stretch the mouth hole? It can’t possibly be elastic enough for that, it’ll tear-- 

“There’s a slit in the back,” Nikola chimes in helpfully. 

“Wonderful,” he says numbly. 

There is a slit in the back, going from the base of the skull to the small of the back. He takes a deep breath, stands up and sticks his leg into the gaping hole. Just like putting on trousers. Or a jumpsuit. Simple. Don’t overthink it. Just get it over with. He starts tugging the skin up one bare leg, and he thinks:  _ huh, it’s not as wet as I thought it’d be.  _

Because he had been expecting for it to be wet, hadn’t he? With blood. But that would only be the case if it were fresh, right? But it doesn’t look rotted at all. It must be… preserved in some way. He has no idea what Nikola must have done to make someone’s skin feel like this. It’s dry and… comfortable. It’s comfortable. It slides up his skin easily. He puts his other leg in, and pulls the skin up to his waist with as little fanfare as if he really were just putting his trousers on. It doesn’t pinch and drag or hang loosely on him, so far. It fits like a glove. Like it was tailored for him. 

“Go on,” Nikola encourages him, excited. 

He takes a deep breath, and then he pulls it up so he can stuff his arms down the-- the ‘sleeves’. And then-- he hesitates, but. But he has to. And this is going more smoothly than he’d anticipated. It’s a simple motion, to just grab the-- the  _ hood, _ the mask (the face), and slip it over his head. 

Millie blinks her eyes open. 

Nikola claps delighted. “Oh, it fits perfectly! I knew it would. Do a spin, do a spin!” 

She looks down at herself. The floor is further away than she’s used to, and she feels a bit dizzy with it. That’s when she realizes; she’s taller than Jon,  _ broader _ even, and yet the skin fits perfectly. 

And then the much more pertinent part sinks in: she is she. She is Millie. She is not he, she is not Jon. And yet-- she is-- she isn’t-- what--

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” Nikola says. She takes Millie’s hand, and tugs her into a spin. Millie reacts to it smoothly, despite how off balance she feels, because she spent most of her childhood as a ballet dancer. She’s a ballet dancer, she can  _ dance, _ she’s  _ graceful. _ She laughs, confused and euphoric. She isn’t Jonathan Sims. She’s Millie Cobb, she’s never been dumped once in her life, and she knows how to dance like it’s second nature. “That’s the spirit! I  _ knew _ getting you into something more cheerful would make you less gloomy and jumpy.” 

“How is this possible?” she asks. It isn’t a shaky demand, a desperate grab at information to make it feel like she has solid ground to stand on. Not the way Jon would ask it. It’s an overjoyed question.  _ You got me a four carat diamond? How? Mum’s going to survive the cancer? How can that be?  _ “We’re not even the same size.” 

“Whether or not a skin fits has nothing to do with size,” Nikola says. “It doesn’t matter. Who cares about logistics? You should be making the most of your night!” 

Millie instantly accepts this in a way Jon never could. She smiles and nods. Nikola laughs, and goes and gets her a pretty dress to wear so she can go outside. Millie loves wearing dresses. She loves the swish of the skirt against her legs. Jon has never worn a skirt in his life. He’s been curious perhaps, but just a bit too scared to ever actually try it. He’d always think about what his grandmother would think, the look on her face if she saw, every time he actually considered borrowing one of Georgie’s skirts. Borrowing her shirts was fine, but the skirts? That was a line too far. It didn’t even change after dear grandma Sims died. 

But Millie Cobb was running around in skirts before she was developing long term memories. It’s natural to her. Nothing to be nauseously worried about at all. 

“Don’t you look as pretty as a picture,” Nikola coos. “Now, make sure to come back before the sun rises. You don’t want to know what happens if you don’t.” 

Jon would have worried about that. He would have probed and pried for clarifications, an answer. Millie doesn’t need to know more than the fact that she needs to be back before sunrise. If she makes the curfew, then she doesn’t need to know what the punishment is, after all. And she’s planning on being a good girl and obeying the curfew, of course. Millie’s a very honest woman. 

She smiles wider, because she’d never stopped smiling in the first place. She  _ likes _ being Millie. Being Millie is easy. Everything is so simple and clear cut for her. Her brain doesn’t twist itself up in anxious, nagging tangles. It’s so deeply refreshing she could cry from it. The animals are definitely moving at the edges of her vision now, whispering and laughing to each other, and she doesn’t even care any longer. 

“I will,” she promises. “Thank you, Nikola! Bye! I’ll see you later!” 

Nikola and the animals wish her goodbye and farewell, and Millie runs out of the shop and into the bright, beautiful world. She’s going to have to cram as much fun as she can into the little time she has, after all. 

Sunrise is so far away. The sun hasn’t even set yet. There are so many options open to her that she feels-- no.  _ Jon _ would feel paralyzed by it. But for Millie, it’s simple. She just chooses a thing to do, and does it. She goes to the park. It’s a lovely, sunny day, and there are people all around her. 

Jon and Georgie went to this park a few times with their friends. They had picnics that lasted for hours, and they sneakily took sips of alcohol using each other as cover, laughing and feeling like they were getting away with something, a little bit giddy over the petty thrill of it. Georgie could be in this park right now, with the friends that had turned out to be just her friends. If they ran into each other, Georgie wouldn’t even recognize her. 

The thought doesn’t hurt. Millie laughs at the novelty of that, the sheer relief. A man looks at her strangely for laughing at nothing, but then smiles at her instead. Millie has a pretty, infectious smile. She knows this about herself. It’s strange, what she knows about herself, what she doesn’t. Knowledge falls into her head as it occurs to her, as it is relevant, like it’s something that she’s known all along. 

“Hey,” the smiling man says. “My name’s Dave. Wanna sit with us?” 

“Sure!” she agrees easily, happily. Jon never gets invitations like that, from complete strangers, and why would he? 

She sits down with Dave and his friends, and she  _ connects _ with them. They talk for hours, and it’s so easy, talking, joking. She’s being treated like she was always a part of this group in less than an hour, because Millie Cobb has always made friends easily. She’s charismatic. Likeable. 

Dave puts a hand around her waist, and she melts into it. When was the last time someone touched Jon? Not since Georgie left? No, even longer. Georgie had very carefully not touched him even once during that whole… during that. And the weeks before that-- there had been a growing distance now that she thinks about it, wasn’t there? So obvious in hindsight. If Jon had only seen it, maybe he could have stopped it. But he hadn’t, because he was broken. He didn’t have that instinctive knowledge of how people worked that everyone else seemed to have. He was inherently lacking in a way no one else was. That was why he was always alone. Having Georgie for as long as he had had just been a fluke, an anomaly. 

None of these thoughts hurt. It’s not like she’s thinking about herself after all. That’s someone else. That’s Jon. Not her problem. 

“Oh damn, it’s already four,” Lacy says, looking at her watch. Millie remembers all of their names, even though she only met them a few hours ago. She’s  _ good  _ with names. 

“Oh!” Dave says, and turns to her. It’s a short turn, considering that they’re tucked up against each other. He looks a little bit sad. “We were gonna go and see that new superhero movie--” He stops, brightens. “Hey, I know this is kinda crazy, but do you wanna come with?” 

“Totally!” she agrees, and everyone around the table does as well. They all met her only a short while ago, but they don’t want to part with her so early either. Millie Cobb is likeable. People like being around her. It just comes naturally to her. 

They go and watch the superhero movie that lasts for three whole hours, and she spends it whispering and giggling with everyone instead of really paying attention. Afterwards they’re crowing over newly made inside jokes, leaning on each other with tears of laughter in their eyes. By that point it's seven, almost eight, so they go to a bar. She doesn’t have her wallet on her, but Dave buys all of her drinks for her without even asking. She gets the sweetest drink available because she likes sweet things and she _ can, _ she’s a girl, no one’s going to care. It tastes good. She feels dizzy and silly with alcohol soon, and she  _ likes _ it. Jon never really liked feeling drunk, didn’t like feeling like he wasn’t in control of his own body or reactions, but Millie does. She feels light and weightless and indestructible. 

The hours fly by so quickly. She talks and talks and talks, and she doesn’t get tired of it. It isn’t exhausting, it isn’t draining, she isn’t awkward or not getting why something someone said was funny. Dave touches her, and eventually so does Lacy and the others, casual slaps on the back and arms thrown over her shoulder, and she isn’t hyperconscious of any of it, she doesn’t flinch or go stiff and uncomfortable. Touching is easy. Talking is easy.  _ Being  _ is easy. 

She doesn’t remember the last time she was this happy. Millie Cobb is this happy often, effortlessly. This is her status quo. 

Jessica and Charles split off from the pack eventually, saying that they’re tired. It’s been dark outside for a while now. And then Steve and Chris leave as well, one by one, and then Lacy as well, and then it’s just her and Dave. 

“God, I’m tired,” Dave says, but he’s smiling as he does so. “Time to turn in for the night?” 

She doesn’t want to turn in for the night. She wants to stay up until sunrise, until the last possible moment. She is not going to Jon’s empty quiet flat to be _ alone. _ Absolutely not. 

“One more drink,” she goads him. 

He laughs. “Jesus, where are you getting all of that energy? Are you on coke?” 

“Good idea!” she says, only half joking. She feels like she could do anything. 

Dave grins at her fondly. He puts a hand around her waist again. “If you don’t want for the night to be over yet…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, trailing off meaningfully instead, looking into her eyes. 

Jon would not understand this. He wouldn’t catch on. He’d need things spelled out for him, hammered in, all of the playful subtle suave spontaneity effectively leached from the moment, just so that he could get it. But Millie gets it. He wants to fuck her. 

She stops and blinks. Dave flushes. 

“Not if-- no pressure.” 

Jon doesn’t like sex. Tried it, wasn’t for him. Millie likes sex very much. She realizes this in that very moment, has known it all along. She could go to Dave’s place and have fun with him until the sun rises. She could go and not be alone, get touched, be someone who is very much not Jonathan Sims. 

Somehow, it feels like a step too far. Would Dave want to have sex with Jon? He wouldn’t be able to, even if he did. Jon wouldn’t want to. But she isn’t Jon, she’s Millie-- except for how she _ is--  _ but--

“You know what?” Dave says, and she realizes that she’s been quiet for too long. “I’m too drunk for that stuff right now, nevermind. Don’t worry about it.” 

He’s being kind. It makes her want to kiss him, but if she does then that means that they’re going to go back to his place and-- 

“Right,” she says. “Okay.” 

Dave leaves after that. Not right away. They make some smalltalk, he looks at his phone, finishes his drink first. It doesn’t look like a retreat. He doesn’t ask for her number before he goes. She’s left alone, the last person at the table. 

That had been fun, hadn’t it? 

She grits her teeth and buries her fingers in her hair. She should have said yes. That’s what this night is about, getting away from Jonathan Sims. She shouldn’t be letting his hangups get in her way, ruining her fun. It would have been  _ fine. _ She would have had fun, and so would Dave. No harm done. But instead she’s _ alone _ now, and she’s  _ thinking.  _

Thinking about stuff she doesn’t want to think about. Like how Nikola had gotten her hands on Millie Cobb’s skin in the first place. She tries to know this, to remember it, but it doesn’t come to her like everything else about Millie has. 

Had Nikola stolen this skin from a grave? Or from a living woman? Had Millie Cobb been walking home after a late night of joyful partying, too confident and incautious to worry about anything happening to her, and then been killed and skinned? Had she stumbled into the taxidermy shop, and not been offered the same deal that Jon had been given at all? At the age of twenty five. She’s twenty five years old, and she’s nothing but empty skin now. 

No. She isn’t Mille Cobb, except for how she is Millie Cobb. She is Jonathan Sims, wearing the dead skin of Millie Cobb like a suit, and he’s been using her to distract himself, to escape himself. Using her skin for _ fun. _ Almost had sex with a strange man while wearing it. 

Millie Cobb who is Jonathan Sims who is Millie Cobb goes out in the alley outside of the bar and is sick. She spits bile onto the ground and takes deep breaths. This isn’t like her. Millie can down an entire keg without getting sick. Millie doesn’t dwell on a single unpleasant thought unless forced to at gunpoint. So why does she feel so  _ bad, _ all of a sudden? Why can’t she stop thinking about the worst possible things? She’d been having such a wonderful night. 

Her skin is starting to feel weird. Itchy, except it’s itching deep inside where she can’t scratch it away. His  _ brain _ feels itchy. 

His? 

_ Now, make sure to come back before the sun rises.  _

The dark night sky is starting to lighten across the horizon, she realizes. Sunrise is approaching. He has to-- she has to get back to the shop. 

_ You don’t want to know what happens if you don’t.  _

She runs. 

“Oh, just in time!” Nikola says as the door bangs open, as the bell rings, as Millie Cobb collapses sweating and gasping for air onto the floor. 

“What--” she says, has to stop to try and suck in more desperate, shallow breaths. She can barely feel her legs any longer. She can normally run farther than this, she knows. She’s a dancer. Strong legs. But everything feels  _ wrong _ now. “What’s wrong with me?” 

“Too much skin,” Nikola says simply. “You’ve got  _ two _ whole skins on you right now. That’s not really done. Of course you’re overheating and chafing after running around in all of that all night long!” 

This does  _ not _ feel like overdressing on a hot summer day. This isn’t overheating, this isn’t chafing. It’s feeling inherently wrong inside her own body. Off. Like everything’s too tight-- or too loose-- like it’s going to fall off or tear at the seams, all of it-- 

Nikola slips behind her, and shoves a hand into the long seam at her back. Millie screams at the sensation. That’s where her  _ nerves _ are. Nikola puts her other hand over Millie’s mouth, muffling her. 

“Shh shhhh,” she comforts her, like she’s a panicking animal. “Shush. I’m just helping you. It’s so  _ hard, _ isn’t it, putting on outfits that zip up at the back all on your own. Good thing that you’ve got a friend right here to help you out.” 

And then Nikola peels Millie Cobb right off of Jonathan Sims. Putting her on had been seamless, quick, easy. Taking her off is slow. Brutal. She doesn’t  _ want _ to go. She doesn’t want to stop being.  _ She doesn’t want to-- _

Nikola tugs the last of the skin off, clinging desperately to his legs, like someone digging in their nails as they’re being dragged kicking and screaming to their oblivion. And then he’s Jonathan Sims again. 

Every muscle in his body goes abruptly lax as he collapses onto the floor on his back. He breathes, fast and mindless, as his entire body prickles with the leftovers of intense, unimaginable pain that all vanished the instant Millie’s skin stopped touching his. 

“There,” Nikola says, pleased. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” 

“I--” he croaks, and then it all falls in on him all at once. 

He is Jon. He’s Jon, and he’s alone, and Georgie Barker doesn’t want to be with him, and--

The sob scrapes out of his throat, so unanticipated that it surprises himself. He clasps his hands over his mouth and turns over onto his side. He squeezes his eyes shut. Being Jon again all at once is overwhelming, terrible. It almost feels like a death sentence, how crushing it is. 

“Oh, there, there,” Nikola says, and pats his thigh perfunctorily. “She was just feeling a little bit clingy, that’s all. The ones that enjoy living are the ones that are the hardest to take back off. They fight more.” 

Millie. He breathes in, breathes out. Forces himself to stop being overwhelmed by just being himself. (But it’s so terrible, compared to being Millie. Millie had liked herself. Other people had liked her. Why couldn’t he stay like that? He wanted to stay. She wanted to stay.) 

“Did you kill her?” he rasps. 

“Who?” Nikola asks. 

He makes himself sit up. The air prickles against his bare skin, and he somehow feels so vulnerable, like there should be something between him and the rest of the world. 

Wait, yes there should be. He’s naked. 

“Clothes,” he says. He won’t-- now that he’s aware of it, he wants to be clothed as soon as possible. Especially for this. “Where are they?” 

“Can’t you just wear this?” she asks, and gestures at the dress Millie had been wearing. Nikola had tugged it off of her--him-- sometime during the torturous undressing. 

_ “Where are my clothes?”  _

“Oh, fine, be like that. That dress is _ far  _ prettier, though.” 

She goes off to get him his clothes back. She doesn’t take the Millie skin with her. He wishes she would have. He stares at the skin he’d been wearing for a whole day and night. At the skin that he’d  _ been. _ It hadn’t been like just wearing an outfit. She hadn’t just possessed him, either. He had… become her. 

He wonders if she’s still in there. If that immobile, empty skin has a screaming woman inside of it, just begging to be worn and brought back to life. 

Nikola comes back with his clothes. He hates that he’s relieved not to be alone with Millie-- with Millie’s  _ skin _ any longer. He puts the clothes on. Stands straight. Takes a deep breath. 

“So,” Nikola says. “Be honest, how was it? What’s your review? Five stars? Ten stars? One million, billion stars?” 

“Did you kill Millie?” 

“Again,  _ who?”  _

_ “The woman whose skin is on the floor of your shop.”  _

“Well, there’s no need to be like that! You can’t expect me to remember every single name in the whole world. Names aren’t even important. What is the point of them? Why are all you little humans so obsessed with them? I barely remember yours, and that’s just because you’re a dear client of mine. I barely remember mine. In fact, I’ve forgotten it several times! Nikola’s just the newest one.” 

“Did you,” he grits out, fists clenched and white knuckled,  _ “kill her.”  _

“Brrr.” Nikola hugs herself in a pantomime of freezing cold.  _ “Frigid. _ And no Jon, I didn’t kill her. Of course not!  _ Me? _ Kill someone? I would never--” 

“Then where did you get her skin.” 

“The mortuary, of course!”

He blinks, caught off guard. “Pardon?” 

“The mortuary! I used to just go graverobbing, but honestly, people don’t seal the caskets as well as they like to pretend. The dirt and the worms get in and everything’s just  _ ruined _ by the time I get there. Mortuaries are better. Everything’s fresher in there, nice and clinical and cold, lovely and preserved for me.” 

“... Oh,” he says. He honestly hadn’t been expecting a believable answer that wasn’t just ‘murder’. 

Nikola tilts her head at him. Slowly lets her smile stretch and stretch.  _ “Jon,”  _ she says. “Were you being Millie’s white knight just now?” 

“No,” he says too quickly. 

“Awwww, aren’t you just  _ darling.”  _

He doesn’t know how to even begin to reply to that, so instead he just turns around and moves to leave. 

Animals bar his way.

He knows now that it isn’t just coincidence. It isn’t his fault, he didn’t get confused and forget that they were there. He glares down at them. 

“Get out of my way,” he spits, feeling raw and furious. He was not Jonathan Sims for the first time in his life, and going _ back _ to being himself after a break that he’d thought was impossible in the first place-- 

It’s bad. He hates that it’s bad, just being himself. He wants to be alone. 

“Let him go,” Nikola says, magnanimous and merciful. He can hear the grin in her voice. “He’ll be back, after all.” 

He closes his eyes for a moment in sheer anger and frustration at her certainty, and when he opens them back up his path to the door is clear. 

He leaves. 

He’s not going to go back. He wanted to see if what she was offering was real, if he really could be someone else if only for a night, what it was like to be someone who isn’t him. He’s checked off every single one of those boxes now. No need to go back, he got everything he came for. 

It’s not until he’s halfway home that he realizes that he’s bleeding again. His arm. There’s a perfect circular patch of skin missing from his forearm. It must have stopped bleeding during the day and night, when it had been pressed tightly upon by another second skin overlayed over his own. That’s gone now, and it’s sluggishly bleeding again. There are bloodstains on his shirt, from when he’d first used it to try and stem the bleeding. The streets are mostly empty, with it being the crack of dawn, but he still skulks conspicuously through alleys and side streets on his way home, taking the long way. It’s all his blood, but he doesn’t know how he’d explain it to a concerned passerby on the street. 

He doesn’t know how he’d explain any of this to anyone. He talked to a monster and then wore a woman’s skin. He’d get thrown into an asylum, if not jail. He can’t go to the hospital. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know what to do, if he’s never been hurt like this before. He brought this on himself. He needs to figure it out on his own. 

He finally stumbles his way home when humanity is truly starting to wake, everyone with a nine to five job rousing to get there in time. He closes the door behind him, and just stays there for a long moment, feeling blank and exhausted and ragged. 

And then he gets going. He finds the first aid kit that’s only been used for accidental cuts and burns incurred during cooking before, and he tries the best he can. To sterilize it, to cover it up. Does a wound like this even heal? 

It’s awkward, trying to clean and bandage a wound on his arm. It would be better if a second person were here to help. If Georgie--

He imagines calling her. Asking her for help. How would it go? How would she respond? What would she think? 

That he’d hurt himself to get her attention, is his immediate thought. That he’s being pathetic and clingy and unstable. Would she press him for answers? He can never lie to her, he’s never managed it. He’d tell her the truth. Would she believe him? 

It doesn’t matter, he realizes. It doesn’t matter whether she thinks he’s crazy and dangerous or telling the truth. Because the truth is just as ugly as what any sane person would assume, in this instance. Uglier, even. He willingly walked into a monster’s den and wore a dead woman’s skin to get away from himself, because he’s  _ sad.  _

It’s no wonder she left him. If she saw him more clearly than he sees himself, if she knew that this is the kind of person he is-- of course she left. Of course. 

Jon was an entirely different person only hours ago, and  _ still _ he can’t stop thinking about her. He grits his teeth and focuses on dressing his injury. 

He isn’t going back. 

The days spool out long and slow, like syrup dripping from a spoon. There’s nothing to fill them with. Nothing to do. He tries to read, he tries to watch telly, he tries to take walks. Nothing works. He can’t think about anything else but her. 

Which her? 

He isn’t going back. 

It is two forty three in the morning, and he’s still awake because his sleep schedule is a wreck. There’s no one else to shape it around, no one else’s lead to follow. Why should he go to bed at eleven, if Georgie isn’t there and waiting for him to cuddle with her? What reason does he have? 

He thinks about Millie. How effortlessly content she’d been. He wonders if it’s like that for everyone else. Everyone. If it’s  _ that _ easy for every single other person he’s ever talked to. He’s always wondered if there was something wrong with him, when year after year he kept not having any friends, when people kept getting this  _ look _ on their face after talking to him only a few times, but-- that can’t be right. Right? It can’t possibly be  _ that  _ drastically different, right? He’s not that different from everyone else, is he? 

_ I  _ knew _ getting you into something more cheerful would make you less gloomy and jumpy.  _

That was what Nikola had said. Something more cheerful. So maybe Millie was just as unusual as he, in a different way. Exceptional, instead of unfortunate. 

He’s not going back. He’s just wondering-- he’s just  _ considering--  _

Jon stands in front of  _ The Trophy Room. _ Rain runs down the window panes, and he can dimly see animals looking out at him from the inside. They look hungry. 

He goes inside. 

Nikola makes a huge fanfare out of his return, of course. She gushes, she taunts, she touches him. Jon scowls at her, and points at the next space on his arm that she can take skin from. 

Just one more time, of course. Just one more time. 

Jon becomes himself again. He groans. 

“That was a hard one, huh?” Nikola asks, amused. She’s sitting on the counter, feet away from him. “Stubborn!” 

Liam Simes’ skin lies in a puddle at his feet. He’d spent almost an hour clawing him off himself. Liam had  _ not _ wanted to leave. 

“You could have helped,” he bites out, voice a hoarse croak from all of the screaming. 

Nikola titters. “But it’s more  _ fun _ this way. And you need to learn how to be independent eventually, Jon!” 

He looks around blearily for his duffle bag, and spots it. He pulls it over. He’d started bringing the first aid supplies with him to the store eventually, instead of dripping blood on the pavement all the way back to his flat. He gets started on cleaning the new skinless wound. At least it’s gotten easier since he stopped telling her to take from his arms, and started in on his legs instead. He can use both hands this way. 

His hands shake anyways. Liam’s had been so steady. So confident. Liam had been the kind of man who was always the largest in any room he walked into. The tallest, the fittest. He wasn’t scared of anyone, because he knew he’d win any fight he entered. He’d spent the night wandering alleyways, just itching for an excuse, and a mugger had eventually given it to him. Liam had beaten that man to within an inch of his life, and then left him groaning and bloody in a pile of trash bags, fierce and satisfied. It belatedly occurs to Jon to worry for that man, to hope that he got to a hospital. Even if he  _ had _ been waving a gun in Liam’s face (who had reacted like it was a particularly unimpressive toy). 

“Are you doing it on purpose?” he asks. 

“Elaborate,” Nikola says, now doing a handstand on the counter. 

“Are you only giving me people who are better than me? Confident, happy, charming people.” 

Nikola tilts her head at him, looking the picture of a befuddled (horrifying skin monster) woman. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

Relief breaks over him. Of course. Of course not everyone in the world is like this: so much infinitely better than him. Self assured and certain about everything. She’s just been… giving him the best of the best. 

Jon is fighting against the idea that Nikola may very well be the closest thing he has in the world to a friend. Somehow, having  _ her _ as a friend would say something even worse about him than just not having any friends at all would. 

“You’re running out of real estate on your legs,” she notes slyly. She’s behind him now. He stops himself from starting. He’s starting to get used to it, and he’s too exhausted for that by now anyways. She runs a hand down his back. “Might be time to branch out, hmm?” 

“I won’t be able to reach my back to take care of the wounds there,” he points out. 

“That’s an easy fix, darling! I can take care of that for you, don’t you worry.” 

“Do you even know how to take care of human injuries?” 

“How  _ dare _ you? I’m wounded, Jon, I truly am. No one knows how to take care of skin better than me!” 

“I’m not a cross stitch or a sewing project. It’s different, when there’s still living flesh underneath the skin.” 

“How many times have I seen you do this now? I  _ know _ how to go through all of the trouble you fret over to take care of those pesky wounds of yours. It’s boring really, the repetitiveness of it all. I don’t know how you stand it.” 

It’s amazing, what a person can become accustomed to. Jon’s legs are covered in bandages by now. He’s tentatively started leaving some of the ones on his arms off. The scars look… strange. Definitely conspicuous. Like he’s decided to make an art project out of self harming. He wears long sleeves, despite the hot humidity. 

He really is running out of place on his legs. There’s skin in between all of the circles, of course, but Nikola prefers to have a clean cut. And he worries about what might happen, if he lets her take too much skin from one spot. 

“Alright,” he agrees. “You can start taking from my back, from now on.” 

He doesn’t remember when he stopped saying ‘this is the last time.’ 

Nikola makes a giddy, excited noise. “Oh Jon, you won’t regret it,” she promises him. 

“I already am,” he says, just to be contrary. 

Jon wakes up one morning. It’s in his bed, not the shop floor. He’s almost disoriented by that. He reaches an arm across the bed, reaching for her-- 

It’s empty. Of course,  _ you idiot.  _

It’s been months now. He was expecting to wake up on hardwood floor, surrounded by taxidermy and covered in his own blood, and yet he’s still expecting to wake up next to her? Still? Isn’t that a little bit unreasonable? Ridiculous? Stupid? 

He wonders if she’s gotten used to waking up without him yet. 

Yes, of course she has. She’s-- she’s-- she probably--

Jon stills. 

She. She. She. 

“She,” he says. No, that can’t be it. What was her name, now again? He can’t have possibly forgotten it. That makes no sense. They dated for three years. He thought they’d be together forever. He’s been missing her so keenly that he’s been running away from himself to stop thinking about her, even if he had to cut pieces of himself off to make it happen. He still expects to see her there, every time he wakes up, against all logic. 

He has to be able to remember her name. 

He can’t remember her name. 

He scrambles for his phone. Scrolls through the contact list. Swears, as he remembers that he deleted her. But that’s fine, because he memorized her phone number-- 

He can’t remember her number. 

Jon puts his face in his hands and takes some deep breaths. Calm down. Think. Think. How could this have possibly happened? 

That’s how he ends up back at  _ the Trophy Room, _ even though he’d been planning on just lying in his bed and resting today. 

“Nikola!” he calls out. “I want to talk!” 

“Jon!” she cries. “You’re so early. Couldn’t wait another moment? Well, I’ll see what I can rifle up for you, but don’t set your standards  _ too _ high--”

“I can’t remember her name,” he says desperately. He’s  _ scared. _ This doesn’t make any sense. “Did you take it from me?” 

She tilts her head, like she always does when she thinks he’s said something strange and silly. Just a bit too far to be a human head on a human neck, despite the skin she’s draped herself in to try and make it seem otherwise. 

“I-- I’ve forgotten something very important,” he explains. “I can’t possibly have forgotten it, I would never-- there’s something strange going on! Did you do it? You must have. Nikola, please, just tell me!” 

“Don’t  _ shout, _ darling,” she scolds him. “There’s no need for that. And if you’re forgetting important things, well, isn’t that your own fault?  _ You’re _ the one who’s been so loose with your own skin, trading away so much of it.” 

“Excuse me? What the-- what the hell does skin have to do with my memories!?” 

Nikola gasps, as scandalized as a nun. “Jonathan, _ language.”  _

“Nikola!” he snaps. 

“Oh,  _ fine. _ Just calm down, you look like a kettle about to boil over. Just use your common sense a little bit, and it all makes sense. Memory lives in the skin, you gave away a lot of it, so you’re losing some of your memories. It’s not that complicated!” 

“Memory does not live in the  _ skin, _ that’s ridiculous! It lives in the  _ brain!” _

“The brain? You mean that useless squishy gray stuff I just pour into the drain? Oh, I made a  _ rhyme, _ Jon, did you hear it?” 

“I don’t--” He stops. Puts his face in his hands. Screams into them, muffled and furiously stressed. Nikola pats him on the head consolingly. 

“Teakettle. I  _ said _ so.” 

He takes some deep breaths. And he thinks  _ she has a point.  _

She does have a point, doesn’t she? Each time he puts on someone else’s skin, he knows who they are as intimately as he knows who  _ he _ is. He knows their names, their likes, their dislikes, who they fundamentally  _ are.  _ He doesn’t know all of their memories, every single little thing that’s happened to them, but he knows the important, formative things that are essential, tied to their identities. 

And what is  _ she _ to him, but that? Essential. Formative. And he’s been giving away so much of his skin… 

It doesn’t make any sense, but why would it? He’s dealing with a monster. Nothing about Nikola makes sense. 

“I didn’t know,” he says. 

“Well, I thought it was rather obvious,” Nikola says. “It’s not my fault if you’re stupid, Jon.” 

He laughs dryly, bitterly. He wonders what else he’s lost along the way, without noticing. If memory lives in the skin, then he must be missing so much. But he didn’t even notice until now, because how could he notice the absence of something? It was just that  _ her _ name was too big of a piece of himself for him to not stumble across the void, and panic over what it could possibly mean. 

_ You should stop giving her your skin, _ he thinks in  _ her _ voice. _ Stop before it gets even worse.  _

But isn’t this what he’d wanted all along? To stop thinking about her. He’s finally getting somewhere. He just has to forget the last few things. Her voice. Her face. Her smile. Her scent. Her warmth. Her laugh. 

Just a few more things, and then he’ll be done. 

“Since you’re already here…” Nikola says leadingly. 

“Yes,” he says bleakly. “Why not?” 

Nikola offers Jon the opportunity to be someone else for a night, in exchange for a little patch of his own skin. He says yes, and it’s terrifying and horrifying and  _ wonderful. _ He loves it. He says yes again. And again, and again, and again. He’s always wrapped up in bandages underneath his clothes now, but that’s only when he’s himself, and he tries to avoid that as much as possible anyways. 

One day, he is peeling himself out of the skin of Kevin Kaner. He is clawing, he is scratching, he is  _ dragging _ himself out of the skin of Kevin Kaner, bright and clever Kevin who thinks so quickly, who sees everything, who is so intoxicatingly, amazingly smart. 

Kevin is smart enough to know that if he lets him go, that he won’t be put back on. There are no repeats. Nikola said something about ‘used goods’ once, when he asked. Kevin is fighting for every single inch. It’s like every time he puts on a new skin, the harder it is to get out of it again. Maybe because there’s less of him to fight back each time. 

He fights. He screams and he claws and he pulls and he struggles. He wins eventually. He kicks the last of Kevin off, who stops fighting, who is just empty skin once again, devoid of life. 

It waits to become Jon again. 

It doesn’t happen. 

It looks down at its hands, red and brown, as much skin missing as it’s there at all. They look exactly the way they had the last time it was Jon, and yet they are undeniably not Jon’s hands. It looks up. 

“Nikola?” it calls out, confused and plaintive. “What’s happening?” 

Nikola laughs. “What do you  _ think _ has happened, silly thing?” 

“I’m-- I’m not me. I don’t know how it-- I don’t know what went wrong. I’m not me. Who am I?” 

“Well of  _ course _ you’re not you,” she says indulgently, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I own more of your skin than you do, at this point. There’s not enough Jon left for you to be called Jon!” 

“No,” it says. 

“Yes,” Nikola says simply. 

It turns towards the Kevin skin. It’s gone. One of the animals must have taken it while it was distracted. It turns back to Nikola, desperation crawling up its throat. 

“Nikola,” it says, and it can’t stop itself from sounding as scared as it feels. “You have to give me some of my skin back.” 

“I don’t have to do anything, actually. It was a fair deal! I was very upfront about everything, no cheating at all. You don’t know how rare that is. I  _ love _ lying. Why does truth have to be true, after all? But no, I was honest with you. That skin is mine, fair and square. It’s  _ not _ yours any longer.” 

“But,” it chokes, “I need a skin to live. Please, Nikola.” 

“Begging is unseemly. But very amusing, so feel free to continue. It’s really not my fault if you bankrupted yourself, No One. It’s not like I  _ forced _ you to give away more than you could afford. You could have stayed away forever, every single time you left. Didn’t even have to threaten you! It’s been  _ very _ entertaining.” 

The animals around them laugh in agreement. They are more someone than it is, now. No One. That was what Nikola called it. That’s what it is now. No One. 

“Oh, don’t be sad,” Nikola coos. She crouches down and pets its face, and it  _ hurts, _ its nerve endings exposed and vulnerable. “Why do you even  _ want _ that skin back, No One? You didn’t even like it! You did everything you could to get away from it, in fact. You should be  _ happy.”  _

No One can’t even disagree with her. It  _ didn’t _ like Jon, even when it had been him. No one liked Jonathan Sims. No one at all. 

“Nikola,” it says helplessly. It doesn’t know what else to say, what else to do. 

_ You shouldn’t have gone back, _ a woman’s voice says in his head, for some reason. She sounds sad. 

“There, there. Don’t worry, we  _ are _ friends. I’ll take care of you! You never liked that Jon skin, so I won’t be giving it back to you. But how about another skin? One that you can stay in, forever and ever. A  _ better _ skin, one that you’ll actually like, one that  _ everyone _ will like. How does that sound?” 

No One knows this: it wants to be _ someone. _ It  _ needs _ to be someone, anyone at all. 

“Please,” it says. 

“It’s a deal,” Nikola says, smiling like always. 

No One doesn’t know this, because it gave the memory up, just like everything else. It didn’t even notice the absence once it went away, despite how desperately it had wanted to get rid of the memory when it had it, despite how many times it ran over that memory over and over again.

This is how Georgie Barker and Jonathan Sims broke up: 

“Is it because of the sex?” is the first thing he asks, stupid and too blunt. He means the lack of it. 

“No, Jon,” Georgie says tiredly. “It’s not that.” 

He believes her. She had been the one to help him realize that he was asexual in the first place, had been the one to teach him what that word even meant, showed him that it was a valid option. She had encouraged him, been more open and patient about it than  _ he’d  _ been. It had been hard, but she’d made it so much easier than it could have been. He’d never sensed any impatience or dissatisfaction within her, that he couldn’t do those things with her, that he didn’t want to. And he’d looked very, very hard for it, paranoid and reluctant to believe that it could be so easy, so simple. 

But apparently it could be that easy, that simple. Jonathan Sims was asexual and didn’t want to have sex with his kind, brave, clever, beautiful girlfriend, and she was perfectly fine with that. 

He realizes that he’s disappointed by her answer. That he’d been _ hoping  _ that it had been because of the sex. That it’s because of something concrete and simple that doesn’t have anything to do with his choices or personality. Something that he can’t help. 

“Then why?” he asks, because he wants to  _ understand, _ he wants to see where he went wrong. And he can’t see it on his own. Because he’s stupid and blind, because he can’t see what’s wrong in his relationship even as she’s breaking up with him. There is no big, clear betrayal or mistake that he can point to. No affair, no great lie or fight. Sure, they’ve been bickering more recently, in a sharper sort of way than they had at the start, but-- 

“I just… I don’t think we should keep dating. I never told you this, because I didn’t want to think about it, but I was in a really bad place when I first met you. I was still recovering from something… bad. I felt numb. But when I was with you, I felt more alive. Realer than I’d felt in a long time. So I sort of clung to you because of that, as closely as I could.” 

“Isn’t that a good thing? That I make you feel alive?” 

“There needs to be more to a relationship than that. I wouldn’t have started dating you if I’d been in a better place, if I’d been thinking clearly. I don’t want a project to work on, I want someone who’s ready for a long term relationship.” 

He flinches at that. All he hears is  _ dating you at all in the first place was a mistake.  _

“I am ready for a long term relationship,” he protests urgently. “Georgie, I-- I want to stay together with you.” 

She smiles, and it looks very sad. “I know. But you’ve got to do some work on yourself first, okay? You’ve got some… blindspots. Issues. I want for you to be okay, Jon. And I think I need to figure myself out too. I’ve got some emotional stuff going on, and I  _ still _ haven’t gotten a handle on it. And I don’t think I should be dating someone while I’m dealing with that.” 

“What did I do?” 

“It’s not your fault,” she says. It’s like every single question that he asks her drains her a little more. Her exhaustion is so visible. “It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault.” 

She’s refusing to give him an answer. A clear answer, something that he can understand. She must be trying to spare his feelings. He wishes she wouldn’t. It hurts anyways. He just wants to know what’s wrong with him. He knows that there  _ is _ something wrong with him, but he wants to know what it specifically is. He wants to be able to write it down on a list, he wants to turn it into something concrete, something tangible, something that he can put his hands around and rip out of himself--

“I’m sorry, Jon,” she says, and stands up. She was wearing her shoes and jacket when he first walked into the room. He’d been so focused on her and her serious expression that he only realizes now that the flat is emptier than it should be. Things are missing.  _ Her _ things are missing. The Admiral hadn’t come to greet him when he came home. Panic kicks frantically in his chest, shoving away the rising devastation. 

“Georgie,” he says. She stops, waits for him to say his piece. For him to beg for forgiveness, for understanding, for a second chance. For her to stay. He can see her visibly steel herself for it. 

He swallows all of it down. 

“Okay,” he manages to rasp out, after a long heavy moment. There’s a lump in his throat. His eyes are stinging. His lungs ache. 

“Take care of yourself, alright?” is the last thing Georgie says to him. 

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly, not able to bring himself to look at her. 

And she leaves. 

Looking at it objectively, it was not the worst break up in the world. Far from it. But it was his first one. And no one was there, afterwards. No one but himself. 

“Oh, that’s a  _ good _ one,” Wolf says. He can hear them all so clearly now. He’s a he again, not an it. 

“She’s been saving that one for a special occasion,” Fox agrees. 

“You look lovely in him,” Stag says. 

“Thanks,” he says, and he sounds sincere, because charm comes easily to who he is. 

“Of  _ course _ he looks lovely in him,” Nikola says. “Have I ever not been fair to you? Have I ever given you a bad deal? I’ve only ever given you the best skins. This is arguably my  _ best  _ one. Charming, talented, likeable, handsome-- he even has loved ones! Everything you weren’t and didn’t. And this time, you get to keep it, because I’m very generous. Aren’t you grateful?” 

“Yes,” he says, because he may be wearing this skin, but it’s hers. She owns the skin on his body, so he’ll do what’s asked of him. He has to. 

“Wonderful! So you won’t mind doing a few things for me, then? Whatever I ask of you?” 

“It’s no problem, Nikola.” He smiles. He can smile so beautifully now. 

She pinches his cheek. “Such a  _ charmer. _ It’s why I just had to have him. Now, about the loved ones. He has a family. Isn’t that funny? You didn’t have a family, did you? But now you do! A  _ real _ family that loves each other, everyone alive. Aren’t you happy? Isn’t that _ neat?”  _

A family that loves each other. He remembers them for the first time. His family. All alive and well. 

“I miss them,” he says, because it’s true. He’s never met them before. 

“Well, that’s alright,” she says warmly. “Because your brother actually still lives here! In London! You can go and visit him right now, if you want to. Doesn’t that sound just excellent?” 

“Yes, it does,” he says. She owns the skin he’s wearing. 

And he  _ does _ want to see someone who actually cares about him, so much that it  _ hurts. _ He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because of what Nikola said? That he didn’t have any loved ones, before he became who he is now. No family. No friends. No one at all. 

That feels right. Correct. 

“Go and see him then,” Nikola purrs. The animals laugh and chatter. There are a few patches of Jon left, underneath this new skin. Not enough to make up a person of course, not enough to be  _ Jon. _ But they’re there, and they scream as much as skin can, buried and muffled. 

“I will,” Danny says. 

Georgie gives Jon space. She knows that that’s what she always wants, after a breakup. Just space to pick up the pieces and get herself back together before she has to go and face the outside world again. That, and a clean, firm break is better. She’s gone through breakups that lingered and faltered, that lasted for weeks, and she cares about him too much to put him through that. She leaves him alone. 

When the next semester starts up, she worries though. As much as she can worry about anything. Their majors have some overlap in the classes that they’ll be taking, so they will have to be in the same classroom as each other for a few hours occasionally. She hopes it isn’t too soon for him. She hopes her presence won’t grate on him, upset him. 

It might be selfish of her, considering that she’s the one who broke the relationship off, but she sort of wants to keep being friends with him. She likes him. He’s just… they just shouldn’t date. She won’t be the first to reach out, since she was the one to end it, but-- she hopes he calls or texts soon. Gives a signal that it’s okay, it’s allowed, he’s fine with it. She’s got a lot of cat pictures she wants to send him. The Admiral seems listless and restless, in a way that makes her think that he misses his dad. 

But then the first day of the new semester starts up, she pays attention to all of the intros, takes notes, tries to be a good student from the start this time like she isn’t going to fall out of the habit within two weeks-- 

It’s only at the end of the first day that she realizes: she hasn’t seen Jon all day, in any of her classes. The next day, she’s specifically got her eyes peeled open for him. The day after that, she asks around. 

“Hey, have you seen Jon around?” she asks Ivy. 

“Oh, uh, no. I guess not?” 

“I haven’t seen him anywhere either. I just… want to know if he’s okay, is all. When was the last time you talked to him?” 

Ivy looks surprised by her question. “Not since you dumped him.” 

Dumped him. She hates that phrase. Like she’s getting rid of a bag of trash. Jon isn’t trash. None of her exes are trash. She’s got damned good taste, and she dates decent fucking people. Things just… don’t work out sometimes. 

“What, not at all?” she asks, surprised herself. Jon and Ivy had that little mini book club going on, just the two of them. She’d thought-- she’d assumed that Ivy had just stopped mentioning Jon around her, to spare her feelings. 

“Well, you know.” She grimaces a little bit sheepishly. “It felt awkward?” 

“Right,” Georgie says. She feels weird about that. “Well, I haven’t seen Jon anywhere on campus in the last three days, so let me know if you see him. I just want to know that he’s here.” 

“Totally,” Ivy promises. A shadow of worry crosses over her face. “You don’t think that he…?” 

The possibility that Jon had dropped out of the university that he’d fought so hard to get into just to avoid her has been bubbling at the back of her mind all day, but she knows that that isn’t what Ivy’s insinuating. She’s implying something worse. 

No. He wouldn’t do that. She refuses to entertain the possibility. 

“I’m going to go and check with Mark,” she says. 

“I-- Mark didn’t keep in touch with him either,” Ivy says. 

“Neither of you?” 

“Uh, no sorry. We thought… we’d just remind him of you, right? Best for him to get a new start with some other people.” 

Georgie stares at her. Ivy fidgets, uncomfortable. 

“I see,” she finally says. A picture is starting to form in her head. She doesn’t like it. 

“Are you mad at me?” Ivy asks. “Because if you are, then that’s not fair. You’re the one that dumped him, we were just following your lead.” 

“I’m not mad at you,” she says, and is surprised to realize that she’s lying. She pictures Jon dealing with his first breakup all alone, no one calling him, no one checking up on him. She’s… angry. She’s  _ very  _ angry. 

She grits her teeth and turns and walks away without another word, before she says something she might regret. Ever since she lost her fear, she’s been an angrier person in general. It’s the emotion that springs up the fastest to cover up the void where fear  _ should _ be. 

Because scared is what she would be, if she were whole. Jon has missed the first three days of school, and that is very, very much not like him. She’d had to strongarm and guilt him into staying home each time he’d gotten sick when they were together. She broke up with Jon, the few friends he had cut contact with him, apparently, and he’s been left alone all summer. 

If he’d died, would she even know? It’s not like they’re married, not like they’re family. Who would call her? 

Georgie’s angry. Too angry to go through the rest of the day of classes. She breaks her streak of trying to be a good student for once, and leaves early. 

She heads straight for Jon’s flat, and just hopes that he hasn’t moved. On the way there, she calls him six times, and sends him four texts. He doesn’t answer any of them, doesn’t pick up a single time. Maybe he just has her number blocked. It doesn’t sound like him, but she’s his ex. He could have. A frantic, restless sort of anger is building underneath her skin, and she doesn’t know who it’s directed at. Her friends? Herself? Jon? 

By the time the tube slows down at her stop, she’s worked herself up enough that she goes tearing through the doors, through the turnstile, up the stairs. She runs to his flat, urgent and furious because he  _ better _ not have done something stupid and reckless, not without calling her first, not without at least  _ trying _ to ask for help-- 

She comes to his flat’s building. She hasn’t gotten rid of the key for it yet, so she opens it up and jogs up the stairs. Tries her key to the flat itself, and it doesn’t work. She  _ growls, _ and then knocks on it, hard and fast and insistent. 

“Jon!” she shouts through the door. “You’d better be in there! You--” 

The door opens. Jon’s face looks at her. He looks mildly surprised at her appearance, but then he smiles. 

“Georgie,” he says, and she hasn’t heard his voice in so long. She’s somehow startled by his accent, like she’d fooled herself into thinking that she’d exaggerated it in her memory. “Is there a problem?” 

She’d had a whole rant prepared for him. She swallows it down. She smiles back. She’s been working on her reactions, on controlling her emotions. She’s angry when she’s supposed to be scared, more often than not. That means that when she’s angry that she needs to slow down and think things through, despite how wrong it feels. 

“No,” she says. “I was just worried about you. You haven’t been to school yet.” 

“Oh, that. I’ve dropped out,” he says, like it’s nothing at all. 

“I see,” she says, also like it’s nothing at all. Like he didn’t work his damned arse off for that scholarship, as if he hadn’t studied until he was in tears every time exams drew near, as if he weren’t so terribly close to graduating. “Well, I just wanted to check and see if you were okay.” 

“I am,” he says. “Thank you for thinking of me. Do you want to come in?” 

“No thanks,” she says, even though she’s been waiting for this, for him to let her back into his life at his own terms. “I’ve got more classes and stuff today.” 

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you around, then?” 

“Maybe,” she says. She leaves before he closes the door, without saying goodbye. 

She takes a breath. Another deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Keep walking away. Don’t say something you’ll regret. Don’t do anything reckless. When you’re angry, you should be scared, more often than not. Remember that. Don’t do anything reckless. Monsters are real, after all. 

Monsters are real, and the eyes looking at her out from Jon’s face had not been his. 

At least she hasn’t lost grief. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Merry-Go-Round](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26167834) by [Yvonne (connect_the_stars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connect_the_stars/pseuds/Yvonne)




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